We know the new Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Seattle is a thoroughly conceived and unprecedentedly spectacular coffee space and facility.

But what about the coffees it produces?

For our June article we have changed direction rather radically, and in place of our originally planned survey of “Big Box” store coffees, we will publish the results of some blind testing of Starbucks reserve coffees. To put the Starbucks reviews in context, we will also report on coffees from a couple of similar but smaller, less showy and longer-established exhibition roastery-cafés.

The June tasting report and reviews are expected to post on Thursday, June 4.

Kenneth Davids is a coffee expert, author and co-founder of Coffee Review. He has been involved with coffee since the early 1970s and has published three books on coffee, including the influential Home Roasting: Romance and Revival, now in its second edition, and Coffee: A Guide to Buying, Brewing and Enjoying, which has sold nearly 250,000 copies over five editions. His workshops and seminars on coffee sourcing, evaluation and communication have been featured at professional coffee meetings on six continents.